If you turn on the news, there is a good chance you’ll hear at least one story of corruption, greed, or scandal. Politicians, businesses, and even charities have all been exposed at one point or another.

What you’ll rarely hear about are the kindnesses of everyday people. These kindnesses far outnumber all of the ugly headlines we’re fed, but often the good people who provide such kindness don’t share their stories. They don’t do their deeds to be noticed. They do them because they felt what they did was the right thing to do.

But once in awhile, we get lucky. An opportunity arises to hear about one of these acts of kindness and we get to take part in the feel-good emotions that surface from it. We’re touched. We’re inspired. And often the motivation to spread some positivity ourselves surfaces.

It’s this “pass it on” mentality that OAAT Realtor Partner, Carin Mulvaney, has embodied which motivates her to be a person who starts this domino effect on a daily basis.

“Every morning I do words of affirmation. To take that another step further I’m all about one good deed per day because it’s going to completely make your day. It’s going to make the other person’s day, and they’re going to pass that on. When you have someone do something nice for you and you run into someone else, you want to do something nice for them. It trickles down. Maybe someone is having a really bad day and you could completely turn that around for them.”

We recently had the chance to chat mono y mono with Carin to learn more about what motivated her to partner with OAAT and how she views her own role as a real estate agent.

At OAAT, a couple of our core values include authenticity and doing things which inspire others to do good, values that align well with Carin’s mentality of doing one good deed a day.

When I pressed Carin for her top three core values, she thought for a moment and then listed integrity, giving back, and hard work.

I’ve asked dozens of people what their top three core values are, but Carin was the first person to give the response, “giving back”, so I pressed on and asked why giving back was so important for her.

“It probably comes from my parents because all throughout the year both my mom and my dad were always very much involved in the community and doing for people that maybe didn’t have the means to do certain things…”

The highlight of my conversation with Carin though was her story of recently doing everything in her power to get a family into their first home.

Carin and another of our Realtor Partners, Kristi Buckner, were working on a deal together and after building a relationship with the family for eighteen months, they had finally come to a point where the family was getting ready to buy a home.

“We go through this whole process and this lender says, “Oh gosh, there’s just no way. Home ownership is just out of their reach.”

And so, me being who I am, I’m not going to take no for an answer, and so we helped them get some of their debt paid down. Then we get them to a different lender who makes it happen and we write this offer and we get a counter offer.

Kristi and I are sitting at my kitchen counter and I open up the counter offer and it’s $10,000 over their max pre-approval. I looked at Kristi and I think she knew what I was thinking. There were very few words exchanged at that moment. I said, “We have to do this.”

I called the client and told them, “We got a counter offer for $10,000 over. I know it’s past your max pre-approval. Here’s how we’re going to make this happen for you.”

We credited every dollar from our commission and they closed on their house last month.

It was that important that they get into their house. And we got so much flack from our brokerage. They were so angry with us. We went round and round with them because they wanted their 30% and I just kept saying you can’t take 30% if it’s not there. We’re crediting every penny. In the end, we gave 30% to the broker and then shuffled numbers around so that we still gave the client every other penny that was available and we made it happen for them.”

This is the kind of person Carin is. She’s in the business of helping people and real estate just happens to be her vessel for doing so.

“Agents Gives Up Commission To Get Family Their First Home” is not a headline you’ll be reading anytime soon. It’s one of those silent acts of kindness that you usually won’t hear about.

But here we are sharing it, and here you are reading about it.

And in doing so, we hope that you’re inspired to pass on your own form of good to someone else today.

Carin pushed the first domino. Maybe you can push the next one.

Update: We, OAAT, want to clarify that Carin and Kristi are no longer with the brokerage reported in this article.

https://campaignoaat.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/domino-effect.jpg5301400Andrew Pelusohttps://campaignoaat.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/header-logo.pngAndrew Peluso2017-11-07 09:31:432017-11-13 04:09:58It’s What You Do When No One Is Looking That Matters